Since I got my Lei Shen trinket I went with about 9800 haste and saw about 5% up time. If I dropped down to about 6637 haste (aff offspec) with more mastery and crit would you think it would effect up time that much?

Also reading McDareth's post made me realize that I should Incinerate less and Chaos Bolt more. So I had few questions, I know you generally want to save your Chaos Bolt with Int procs. Lets say that you have 1 or 2 embers and you only have 1 Int proc (Lightweave/Jade Spirit/Eng Gloves) do you still Chaos Bolt? I think my problem is that I try to wait for at least 2 procs and that leaves me Incinerating more; then I end up getting close to ember cap and cast a Chaos Bolt with no procs.

I've been simming my character lately and it seems I only have a 100 dps difference whether I reforge quite a bit of excess hit to crit or to haste (more specifically 3.5k crit and 6k haste vs 6k crit and 3.5k haste) Is one preferential over the other? e.g. rrpm trinket procs etc

I've been simming my character lately and it seems I only have a 100 dps difference whether I reforge quite a bit of excess hit to crit or to haste (more specifically 3.5k crit and 6k haste vs 6k crit and 3.5k haste) Is one preferential over the other? e.g. rrpm trinket procs etc

Haste vs Crit doesn't really matter on single target. Sacrificing haste to gain crit, or crit to gain haste is roughly the same damage.

Once you get more targets stats change significantly, and mastery becomes amazing again.

The only time I think crit would be better than haste, talking in terms of single target, is if you have Cha-ye's trinket as it benefits from an increased RPPM chance based on crit chance (possibly raising the value of crit a bit, though most likely not much)

Haste vs Crit doesn't really matter on single target. Sacrificing haste to gain crit, or crit to gain haste is roughly the same damage.

Once you get more targets stats change significantly, and mastery becomes amazing again.

The only time I think crit would be better than haste, talking in terms of single target, is if you have Cha-ye's trinket as it benefits from an increased RPPM chance based on crit chance (possibly raising the value of crit a bit, though most likely not much)

Makes sense, i'm running with the shado pan trinket and a wushoolay's (average ilevel of 511), does that put either crit or haste above the other?

Since I got my Lei Shen trinket I went with about 9800 haste and saw about 5% up time. If I dropped down to about 6637 haste (aff offspec) with more mastery and crit would you think it would effect up time that much?

Also reading McDareth's post made me realize that I should Incinerate less and Chaos Bolt more. So I had few questions, I know you generally want to save your Chaos Bolt with Int procs. Lets say that you have 1 or 2 embers and you only have 1 Int proc (Lightweave/Jade Spirit/Eng Gloves) do you still Chaos Bolt? I think my problem is that I try to wait for at least 2 procs and that leaves me Incinerating more; then I end up getting close to ember cap and cast a Chaos Bolt with no procs.

I've been looking into it after my last post and I noticed the difference in total RoF ticks over a course of a fight and I think it comes down to less up time on RoF more so than you wanting to cast less Incinerates. I'll take Iron Quon again as I think he's a pretty good single target boss who doesn't really have many mechanics where you just can't damage him and I'll add in another warlock from our server who I also noticed this trend with (and I'll probably mention it to him next time I see him):

(I only counted hits and not misses, due to Dam'ren's shield, but neither of you two missed any Chaos Bolts while I missed 2)

And my hypothesis is that if I look into more Destro locks where I see a similar trend of more Incinerate damage then Chaos Bolt damage, there will be a difference in the total amount of up time and ticks on RoF. Even when you look at the single target SimCraft of ember generators for Destro locks:

You'll see that RoF generates almost as many embers as Incinerate does over the course of a fight. I kind of thought going into MoP from playing Destro through pretty much all of Cata that one thing that it needed was another DoT besides Immolate and I think with the changes to RoF it should really be viewed as that, a DoT that gives us a large amount of increased ember generation. Now getting RoF to 100% up time is pretty much impossible as you'll run out of mana sooner than you'd be able to keep it up everytime it falls off after 8 secs, but I still think we should try to get it as close to 100% as humanly (or worgen, gnome, dwarf, troll, orc, goblin, and blood elfly D: ) possible.

Now for when to use Chaos Bolts, I generally disregard Lightweave, Jade Spirit, and to some extent Skull Banners. Now let me put a disclaimer on this, by disregard I mean that if they are up when I'm already casting a Chaos Bolt then great, but by no means do I drop everything to make sure I get one during these. The reason for this is that the new trinket procs are by far better than any of these for using Chaos Bolts. However, if you are close to getting ember capped then dropping a Chaos Bolt on one of these is by far better than capping or using an unbuffed Chaos Bolt. This is the way that I personally prioritize when to use Chaos Bolts based on procs:

1. Cha-Ye's, Breath, Wushoolay's (7+ stacks)
2. Unerring (if I'm already casting one when it proced and I have time to fit in another or I just have time to fit one in)
3. Dark Soul
4. Skull Banner/Tricks (as these are pretty much out of our control. If you know when they'll be down try and line something up but since trinkets don't have ICDs anymore and can proc at any time I believe that embers are much better used on those over these)
5. Lightweave, Jade Spirit (the int procs on the trinkets out shine these by miles so embers are much better served on those)

[Destro] Observer or Imp?

Hi there warlock community!

I'm running GoSup (crit=haste) om my destro lock alt (ilvl 499), and I've followed what guides have said regarding what pet to use pretty much without testing it alot myself.
Observer when he has a high uptime in melee, otherwise Fel Imp.
Though recently a friend of mine said that Fel Imp did insane dps on dummy compared to Observer, I was a bit shocked but said I'd give it a shot.
So I did, got my Demon Training glyph on, CoEd the raiding dummy and watched my pet do his thing, while I did nothing.
Observer ended up at a stable 8-9k dps, and Fel Imp just totally stomped him and was at a stable 21-22k dps. His (tripple) Fel Bolts were hitting for a total of 90k+, non crit. And imo the Fel Imp has FAR better utility aswell.
My question is then, why is Observer the pet that simulates higher dps? Does he scale better with int? Does his dmg scale with the amount of dots like before? Is there something im missing here?
I know my 10 (ish) minutes of testing is far from enough, but I've never been a good theorycrafter

I'm running GoSup (crit=haste) om my destro lock alt (ilvl 499), and I've followed what guides have said regarding what pet to use pretty much without testing it alot myself.
Observer when he has a high uptime in melee, otherwise Fel Imp.
Though recently a friend of mine said that Fel Imp did insane dps on dummy compared to Observer, I was a bit shocked but said I'd give it a shot.
So I did, got my Demon Training glyph on, CoEd the raiding dummy and watched my pet do his thing, while I did nothing.
Observer ended up at a stable 8-9k dps, and Fel Imp just totally stomped him and was at a stable 21-22k dps. His (tripple) Fel Bolts were hitting for a total of 90k+, non crit. And imo the Fel Imp has FAR better utility aswell.
My question is then, why is Observer the pet that simulates higher dps? Does he scale better with int? Does his dmg scale with the amount of dots like before? Is there something im missing here?
I know my 10 (ish) minutes of testing is far from enough, but I've never been a good theorycrafter

Thanks!

Moved your thread to the Destro sticky, where it is in a better place.

On the topic, we get this question every so often, what you experienced is false testing. When you just have the Imp attack, and do nothing yourself then your damage meter stops taking measurements between volleys of Fel bolts, driving up his DPS when there is not actually any extra DPS going out.

If you want to do a real measurement, go to the dummy, take either a fixed amount of time, or a fixed amount of damage, and then make your calculations about the DPS. You'll see that the Imp with glyph isn't any better then the other pets.

Besides that point there's also the fact of buffs to take in to consideration. The actual test that the people at SimC and such do, are under full raid buffs, as it should be.

I'm running GoSup (crit=haste) om my destro lock alt (ilvl 499), and I've followed what guides have said regarding what pet to use pretty much without testing it alot myself.
Observer when he has a high uptime in melee, otherwise Fel Imp.
Though recently a friend of mine said that Fel Imp did insane dps on dummy compared to Observer, I was a bit shocked but said I'd give it a shot.
So I did, got my Demon Training glyph on, CoEd the raiding dummy and watched my pet do his thing, while I did nothing.
Observer ended up at a stable 8-9k dps, and Fel Imp just totally stomped him and was at a stable 21-22k dps. His (tripple) Fel Bolts were hitting for a total of 90k+, non crit. And imo the Fel Imp has FAR better utility aswell.
My question is then, why is Observer the pet that simulates higher dps? Does he scale better with int? Does his dmg scale with the amount of dots like before? Is there something im missing here?
I know my 10 (ish) minutes of testing is far from enough, but I've never been a good theorycrafter

Thanks!

This question has been asked here before.
Do the same tests again and check dmg done, not dps. Your recount is lying to you. The glyph increases your imps burst but does nothing to his (hers? its?) efective dps. Your imp waits for his energy to pool high enough so that he can cast 3 quick firebolts in a row. Without the glyph he casts one whenever its possible. The blank spots in his rotation are not counted in recount so that his dps seems to be higher but overall damage stays exactly the same.
That glyph is a waste of glyphspot. Period

This question has been asked here before.
Do the same tests again and check dmg done, not dps. Your recount is lying to you. The glyph increases your imps burst but does nothing to his (hers? its?) efective dps. Your imp waits for his energy to pool high enough so that he can cast 3 quick firebolts in a row. Without the glyph he casts one whenever its possible. The blank spots in his rotation are not counted in recount so that his dps seems to be higher but overall damage stays exactly the same.
That glyph is a waste of glyphspot. Period

I, on the other hand, find the glyph very useful. I play Destro with Fel Imp (screw the theoretical 1500 dps increase I would get out of Observer... it just doesn't fit Destro) for the utility it brings (small but useful heal, dispel) and the glyph is great. Not only is it better if you switch targets a lot, but the fact that the imp is not casting all the time means, it is free to move and follow me around. Therefore it isn't getting caught in fire (or trap, or aoe, or deadly gas, or whatever) and he is always in range when I need to use some of its abilities.

I think the glyph is very good and it's actually one of few sensible glyphs for Destro out there. Which might be something to point out to GC - we could really use more glyphs overall and I'm not speaking strictly about Majors. We lack (and particulary Destro and Affli) some fun Minor glyphs other classes enjoy. Something along the lines of paladin's glyph that make their judgement appear as a sword or axe depending on which weapon they are wielding.

A minor glyph altering Soul Burn animation for affli or one that would bring up the old Eradiction animation upon a Haunt cast would be good expamples. Particulary Affli feels grafically very hollow (not counting attacks, talking about the effects that appear on the character itself).

Moved your thread to the Destro sticky, where it is in a better place.

On the topic, we get this question every so often, what you experienced is false testing. When you just have the Imp attack, and do nothing yourself then your damage meter stops taking measurements between volleys of Fel bolts, driving up his DPS when there is not actually any extra DPS going out.

If you want to do a real measurement, go to the dummy, take either a fixed amount of time, or a fixed amount of damage, and then make your calculations about the DPS. You'll see that the Imp with glyph isn't any better then the other pets.

Besides that point there's also the fact of buffs to take in to consideration. The actual test that the people at SimC and such do, are under full raid buffs, as it should be.

First of, sorry for posting in the wrong section. And sorry if this question is asked alot, I backtracked quite alot in this guide and on the warlock forums and dind't find anything that answered my question :/

And yes, i thought my dps meter was smart enough to notice the downtime (using tinydps) but oh boy was i wrong. I KNEW i was missing something haha.
Did some more testing and Observer is pretty much on par with Fel Imp (just a tiny bit behind), and that's without the physical vunerability debuff as Viggers pointed out.
Still not sure if I'll switch out my Fel Imp now that I've tried him out. The differance in damage seems to be small, and the utility from the Fel Imp (plus that he's ranged aswell) is awesome imo
But he talks SO much! Any way to make him shut up?

Still not sure if I'll switch out my Fel Imp now that I've tried him out. The differance in damage seems to be small, and the utility from the Fel Imp (plus that he's ranged aswell) is awesome imo
But he talks SO much! Any way to make him shut up?

Well not counting yalin's solution, nope, you get the whole package or none of it. If your raid doesn't need your interrupt though then Imp is pretty damn useful indeed. I've enjoyed using him on a few fights in ToT, and it's nice to have the little bugger around again every so often.

Actually the only Demon I don't use regularly in any form is Succubus. Which is a shame cause she's the best looking one, and (to me) the funniest. Thing is with the current Grimoires the only time you'd see Succy is if you use GoServ, cause Supremacy uses the Shivarra (which is not the same as Succy, AT ALL) and Sacrifice, well, you see her for about .05 seconds before bye-bye. And the thing is, the only ones using GoServ is Demo.....which uses Felguard normally.

I'm not the best with numbers and theorycrafting, so I'm looking for a little advice. (Not asking for specific numbers as I'm sure that'd be a lot of work, but just looking for general input.)

I'm currently running a very heavy mastery build which is giving me huge numbers on fights like Horridon, but only decently high numbers on Jin'Rokh. What I'm wondering is if it might be a good idea on this fight to be using Grimoire of Sacrifice? I have the 4pc from last tier, so I can use Dark Soul on every pool. Do you think it would be a good idea to use a pet when I'm not in the pool, and when it's up, sac the pet and pop DS for the increased Chaos Bolt damage with the heavy mastery, or would it be best to just run GoSac and keep my pet up the whole time?

Im doing nice with Cha and Hydra, most of fights top 3 and rank around 40-70 on WOL. Yesterday i got 4 new pieces sims tell me will increase my dps by 8k , sorry for offtopic i was just excited.

Well I would like to know what you guys think, if I should equip Lei Shen trinket for destruction, when i got it. Or this trinket it's only BIS for Affliction and Demo. Atm my offspec it's Affliction. I heard burst it's insane when proc's.